


Afraid Of a Rope

by calico_fiction



Series: little cuts [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Awkward Conversations, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Secret Identity, Shapeshifting, Sokovia Accords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-18 23:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calico_fiction/pseuds/calico_fiction
Summary: Tony tells Bruce, Thor, and Thor's giant snake about the Sokovia Accords.





	Afraid Of a Rope

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the quote "He that has been bitten by a snake is afraid of a rope." by Edward Albee.
> 
> The description of the anxiety attack is pretty mild, and short.
> 
> Rated for language.
> 
> Hraesvelgr, also known as "Corpse Swallower" is a Norse god that takes the shape of a giant bird (likely a vulture, given the epithet, but sometimes said to be an eagle instead) and sits at the top of the world flapping his wings to make the winds.

There are press waiting for them, clamoring and flashing, at the doors of Stark Tower.

"Vultures," Tony mutters to Bruce and Thor, and Thor's huge snake. Of the literal kind, lounging across his big beefy shoulders and occasionally giving Tony a look that he can only describe as smug. It's disconcerting that it can even give the impression of an expression like that. It doesn't have eyebrows.

"Yes, I see the resemblance!" Thor proclaims cheerfully. "Surely only Hraesvelgr himself could blow greater wind." The snake nudges Thor's chin with the top of its flat head and flickers out its tongue, and Bruce gives Thor an appreciative smile. Seems like Tony is the only one here who doesn't know what the hell that means. Whatever, it was obviously a joke, some fun Asgardian topical humor of some kind, so Tony nods.

"Yeah," he says. "That." His eyes catch on the movement when Thor clasps Bruce on the shoulder as they move past the crowd and in through the glass doors. The last time he saw Bruce only Tony himself and Natasha usually ever touched him so casually. The pang on longing in his gut is like a hot knife. He looks away, fiddles with his watch for something else to focus on for a moment, to recover, and leads the way to the private elevator behind the security desk. He can feel eyes on his back, the paps and his ex-teammates, that creepy snake, all equally heavy, stinging, itchy, right between his shoulders. He tries to shrug it off, despite knowing it won't work.

The elevator ride up to the penthouse is spent in a tick, uncomfortable silence, of the kind that Tony can't ever recall sharing with Bruce before. Maybe Thor. He doesn't remember. Whatever. When they get to the top and exit, Tony beelines straight for the bar. His throat is dry and his head hurts and everything is not quite right. He needs to be knocked off kilter a little, and then maybe everything else will fall back into place around him. (He knows it won't work. It'll only make things worse. He's been here, done this. Stupid.) He pours a glass of whatever, downs it, and then takes down two more glasses for the guests and begins pouring again.

"No, thank you," Bruce says quickly. Tony can hear the shock and hurt in his old friend's voice. He freezes, bottle in hand, over the third glass, the tension in his shoulders starting to throb. Fuck. How could he have forgotten that Bruce doesn't drink? Jesus.

"Don't be silly, Banner," Thor interjects before Tony can manage to get a hold of himself and correct his own mistake. He's still cheerful, but the tension has managed to get to even him, and his smile has gone wooden. "Obviously both of those are for me." Tony chokes out a false laugh, forces his shoulders to drop a fraction, and finishes his pour. He hands two drinks over to Thor, and sucks down half of his own.

"Yeah, big guy," he jokes weakly to Bruce. "Gotta account for the Asgardian metabolism." When Thor turns his head to take a sip from one glass, Tony takes the opportunity to mouth 'Sorry' at Bruce. Bruce nods easily, Tony's shitty apology accepted just like that. He's a good friend. Too good for his own good.

"So," Tony says then, after clearing his throat awkwardly. He drops his eyes, glares at the glossy bar counter. There's no reason to be making this so hard. "What's the deal with the spaceship?"

"Well, I was travelling around the realms trying to discover the meaning of my vision and I noticed that many tradeships had fallen into chaos, so I went back to Asgard to find out what was going on where I discovered that Loki was ruling disguised as our father and was basically useless at it, and then I made him take me to where he had left Odin here on Midgard but the senior home had been destroyed, and we found him in a field with the help of Doctor Strange and then he died and my secret evil sister was released from her prison and she broke my hammer and marooned us so that she could take over Asgard and kill everyone, and then we found Hulk and the last Valkyrie and went back to Asgard through the Devil's Anus and rescued everyone, but also destroyed our whole planet and now I'm King. And also she stabbed my eye out, which sucks."

"What-" Tony stutters, his tired brain refusing to process all of that at once. "The senior ho-? The _Devil's Anus_?" He looks at Bruce pleadingly for help, but Bruce just shrugs and nods, as if all Tony needs is affirmation of Thor's perfectly reasonable explanation. Tony takes a deep breath, closes his eyes briefly, slurps down a fortifying gulp of his drink. "I thought Loki was dead."

"He died, yes," Thor confirms, nonsensically.

"And now you have another evil sibling."

"I have an evil sister," Thor says. It's not really agreement, not quite correction. "She has also died by now probably."

"Probably," Tony repeats flatly. "Okay. Where is the other one?"

"The other what?" Thor cocks his head like a dumb, innocent puppy.

"Loki."

"What about him?" Tony stares at Thor and Thor stares back at Tony. The look on his handsome face is as bland as processed flour, and completely immobile (immovable). Tony sighs again. He lost this exact fight with the other blond beefcake last time; he's not ready to fight it and lose it again.

"You and Steve have a lot in common, Livewire," he says resignedly, surrendering. The snake across Thor's shoulders lets out a slow hiss like a carbonated beverage being opened and then flops its heavy body down onto the bar. It slithers over, sticks its head into the glass Tony has just set down, and appears to start drinking. The other men don't react.

"Is that... okay?" Tony wonders. He thought generally it was pretty frowned upon for animals to have alcohol, but Thor doesn't seem worried about it.

"Is it gluten free?" Thor asks.

"What? Glu- uh." Tony looks over at the bottle. Brandy. "Yes." Thor nods, pets one hand down the snake's midsection, and allows it to continue to drink Tony's booze. Tony waits for a minute, wondering if maybe his grip on reality will recalibrate or perhaps break altogether, but nothing happens and no other information is forthcoming, not from Thor, or Bruce, or the snake. Great. Okay. Sure. Alien reptiles can have liquor, but not wheat. Fine.

"Speaking of Steve," Bruce starts, and Tony groans quietly. He wants his drink back, but he's unwilling to try taking it away from a giant fucking snake. Who knows what that thing's temperament is like. Hopefully it can enjoy it enough for both of them. "Where is he?"

"Who?" Tony tries, but Thor and Bruce only stare him down. He doesn't know how the trick works apparently. He sighs, contemplates making an attempt for his drink, gives up. "The Avengers broke up."

"What, like a band?" Bruce says incredulously. Tony shrugs.

"There was this whole... political thing. Steve and I disagreed and everyone picked sides, and then there was a fight, and third parties got involved, and now they're all fugitives and I'm the only one left, and technically I won, but also technically I was wrong. I mean partially. Partially wrong. He was wrong too! But also right, kind of, I guess. In a practical sense everyone was wrong, and now we're fucked."

Tony looks up at the silences and all three of his guests - Bruce, Thor, and the snake - are blinking at him bemusedly. He guesses he and Thor have something in common too, re: recapping. Tony rubs the bridge of his nose. It's pointless, he has a headache at all times nowadays.

"C'mon," he sighs. He braves the snake and plucks up his glass, scoots around the bar, and gestures at them over his shoulder to follow him into the sitting room. "I'll find you a copy. You can read all about it."

Tony digs out two copies of the original Sokovia Accords from under the desk by the window in the sitting room. He flips the bird to the direct line to Ross that sits on the top, the only thing the desk is really for, just for the short-lived petty joy of it. He hands Thor and Bruce each a copy, making every effort to ignore the heavy dread in the pit of his stomach. He knows Bruce will be rightfully furious that Tony chose to work with that arrogant prick, but he hopes to whoever that their friendship survives it. Thor reminds Tony of Steve again as he reads every page in heavy silence, while Bruce flips through skimming for the important bits. Tony leaves Thor to it and watches Bruce carefully, keeping an eye out for green gills. After a few moments Bruce sets his copy aside, leaving on hand resting on top of it on the couch by his leg. The look he gives Tony, in the armchair across the coffee table, is less of a glare than Tony was expecting but it's certainly not kind either. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it. Opens it again, closes it, and holds up his other hand. He folds his lips under his teeth in a restraining grimace and looks away, shaking his head.

"You're fixing this," he says, low and dangerous, to the window after several slow, measured breaths.

"I'm working on it. Round the clock, buddy," Tony promises quickly. Bruce takes one more deep breath, and then looks back at Tony and nods firmly. His eyes are still steely, his jaw set in a hard line, but it doesn't look like any other reaction is coming for now. Tony sighs, savoring this one small relief in the sea of his current stresses.

"This complicates things a little," Thor murmurs, quietly enough that Tony doesn't think it was intended for him. He looks over to see Thor flipping his copy of the Accords back to the front page, and then switching it over to his other hand to hold it up for the snake to read. Snakes from Earth certainly don't do that, at least not that Tony has ever seen. Tony's brain comes up with a thousand different explanations so quickly it's dizzying, but one in particular is at the forefront. It takes up a haunting chant between his ears: _he's back, he's back, he's back_. But Tony reminds himself that he doesn't even know if Loki is capable of turning into animals, and that he trusts Thor and Bruce, and that nothing bad is happening right now. He begs his brain to let him have just one moment of peace. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Bruce folding his lips under his teeth again, but this time to hold in laughter. Thor looks just _perfectly_ guileless. The snake - if it is a snake - turns to the next page with its tail, eerie green eyes tracing back and forth over the words. Tony tries to make himself relax, keep breathing. If Thor and Bruce think this is funny then there's nothing to worry about.

Tony counts the seconds between inhales and exhales, and when he has himself in hand again he goes to take another sip of his drink only to be confronted with the bottom of an empty glass. Not that he thinks he'd relish drinking after an extra-terrestrial snake which may or may not in fact be a megalomaniac of unknown species anyway, now that he thinks of it. It seems like too much of an effort to get up and get another, though.

"I'd say 'complicated' is underselling it a little bit," Bruce says to Thor. He has that wry tone on that he uses for his bone-driest jokes. Tony keeps staring into the bottom of his glass. There are so many threads to this situation, most of them that Tony can't even see. He believes that he can keep a good enough grip on everything to weave something together less and less every day. He'd need to be at least twelve different people to get it all taken care of - to even be able to know what needs doing.

"I miss Natasha," he blurts out, suddenly, and loudly, and to a resounding silence. He doesn't allow himself to be deterred. "Do you guys miss Natasha?" Neither Thor nor Bruce answer him, but they do both look sympathetic. Maybe even empathetic? Tony's a little hazy on what the difference is, still. He chooses to believe they do miss Natasha but that they, unlike him, are aware of how awkward it is to expound upon how badly you miss someone to a group of people that does not include that person but _does_ include her sort of ex.

"I liked her a great deal," says- someone. It wasn't Bruce and it wasn't Thor, and Tony could swear the voice came from the snake, and he jerks his head towards it on reflex but decides at the last moment not to look, squeezing his eyes briefly shut instead. He laughs hysterically. His grip on his glass is starting to hurt his fingers.

"So," he says, keeping his tone as casual as he possibly can. "Asgardian snakes can drink, and also talk, huh."

"Skywalker isn't Æsir," Thor answers him, soundly deeply disgruntled. When Tony is brave enough to blink his eyes back open, it's to see Thor glaring at the snake and pressing down on its head, pushing it behind him. The snake is looking at Tony. It doesn't look smug anymore, at least, but Tony can't read its expression. _Probably_, he thinks very firmly to himself, _because it's a snake_.

"Skywalker?" Tony repeats, instead of doing anything crazy like _asking_ for Loki to show which is that last thing Tony needs right now. "Big Star Wars fan?"

"I prefer Trek," says Thor absently, paying more attention to his continued losing battle to wrangle the snake. Tony groans again, and lets his head fall onto the back of the armchair with a painful thud.

"Is this over yet?" he asks the ceiling. "Can I wake up now?" Bruce laughs, but it's a sympathetic noise.

"We'll get out of your hair," he says softly. He pokes Tony's knee as he rises, and Tony lifts his head back up to smile at him. Tony missed him too, both of them, just as much as he still misses Natasha and- everyone else. He heaves a big sigh, pretending to be reluctant and inconvenienced, but he does walk them to the elevator like his butler raised him to. As the doors slide open Thor transfers the snake from his own shoulders onto Bruce's. Bruce strokes two fingers in between the snake's eyes and down to the base of its head as it wraps itself around him. Tony is astonished at how comfortable Bruce is with it so close to his neck, especially given that he still can't get it out of his head that there's a chance that it's not just a snake and that if it isn't Bruce knows it. Now snakeless, Thor turns to Tony and grips him between his shoulder and the back of his neck.

"Please know," he says with such gravitas that Tony can almost feel the physical weight of his words. "I would never knowingly bring danger to this realm, and I would never protect someone from a justice that they deserved." He pauses and waits, letting Tony take that in. Tony thinks he understands what Thor is saying, but he doesn't want to and he thinks he'll engage in some healthy denial. He's man enough to admit, to himself, that he's too fragile to consider that his anxiety-ridden conclusions could be true. He simply nods, giving Thor the go-ahead to continue if he has more. "I want to stay here on Earth, with my friends. With you, Tony. But know also, my people come first. Each one of them." With that, he gives the side of Tony's face a rough affectionate pat and enters the elevator. He holds out his hand to the snake, but it stares at him disdainfully and stays with Bruce. Tony only gets to see Bruce's resulting grin for a few seconds before the doors slide closed.

Tony looks behind him back into the sitting room, at the empty glass waiting by the armchair, over at the bar and the myriad options to fill it with. He crosses the room, over to the little desk by the window, and digs out another copy of the Accords. This one is a fourth draft, already rigorously annotated.

"Friday, pull up a keyboard for me, will you?"

Everything else will have to wait, just a little longer. For now, back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Come chill with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/penlex)!


End file.
